Ukraine: What does Nina want?

Be Like Nina union has just published a new statement setting out, among other things, its union strategy and objectives, as well as its most recent victories.

The mission of Be Like Nina is to protect the rights of nurses, nursing staff, doctors and all health professionals who face humiliation, moral harassment and non-payment of wages.

Our aim is to create a pan-Ukrainian medical union that will be able to do this even more effectively, using all the extensive powers granted to it by law.

The need for a new union has arisen because existing structures often fail to fulfil their main role or are tied up with hospital administration.

In the context of healthcare reform, where chief medical officers have been given enormous powers, an independent union is virtually the only guarantee that carers will receive their well-deserved pay and bonuses on time.

Our values

As well as providing professional support, Be Like Nina is also involved in humanitarian work. This work is driven by our people-centred values. Our movement has helped socially vulnerable people, supported families with children, organised leisure activities for families and provided affordable medical treatment.

We need your support to carry out our work.

You can do this by officially joining our organisation, which has already been joined by more than 600 persons, or by making a donation.

What are Be Like Nina members guaranteed to receive?

Legal, media and psychological support, and the solidarity of like-minded people. Financial support in the event of a serious emergency.

What has already been done?

Be Like Nina federates active independent trade unions and is working to create an independent trade union for the whole of Ukraine. Members of the movement include Oleksiy Chupryna, head of an independent union in Myrhorod, who is also a co-founder of the movement, and Olha Turochka, head of an independent union in Shostka, who has managed to lead the local branch of the union despite pressure from the local authorities. The movement has also supported health sector workers fighting against dismissals and unpaid wages in Nizhyn, Pryluky, Zaporizhzhia and many other towns.

Be Like Nina also cooperates with Polish and international trade unions.

Last year, thanks to the support of the Medico International Foundation, we were able to provide accommodation for 45 families in Lviv, Kyiv and Balta for one year. 444 displaced families received food vouchers and medicines.

Thanks to the 50,000 euros allocated by Medico, 48 doctors were paid for expensive treatments, including 12 for joint replacements and heart and eye surgeries. For example, Be Like Nina paid for the operation of a nurse who had been living with constant pain for years. We have also bought expensive drugs for patients with cancer and other serious illnesses.

Legal victories

Thanks to Be Like Nina’s cooperation with lawyer Roksolana Lemyk and Vitaliy Dudin, a lawyer and activist with the Social Movement, the movement is able to provide qualified legal assistance to its activists and represent them in court.

Roksolana Lemyk gave five examples:

A meeting with the director of a hospital in Sambir, in the Lviv region. Following the conversation, the decision to reduce the number of nurses was changed.

In a maternity hospital in Lviv (IMO 3), despite all the obstacles posed by the health establishment’s administration, an independent trade union organisation was set up and a collective agreement was reached in the interests of the employees.

In the same case, a letter of complaint modified the decision approving a nurse’s work schedule that did not meet the employee’s interests and, on the basis of duly executed requests, paid health benefits for regular leave.

At the Regional Centre for Clinical Diagnosis in Lviv, the dispute resolution procedure resolved the issue of payment of back pay to employees who had been transferred from the State Regional Centre for Clinical Diagnosis and Endocrinological Treatment.

A petition has been prepared and filed in the interests of an employee of the Derazhnyanska multidisciplinary municipal hospital in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast (the decision has not yet been taken).

As a result, many disputes are resolved before going to court through collective bargaining, appeals to the hospital administration and local authorities, and publicity on social media and in the media. However, there have also been legal victories.

For example, the reinstatement of Natalia Yurenkova, a nurse from the Lviv region. She was dismissed at the beginning of 2020, but she was not entitled to be dismissed because she was bringing up her daughter alone.

Another victory was the reinstatement of Lyudmyla Pukha, a nurse from Myrhorod. In court, she was able to prove that she had not been offered all the vacant posts when she was made redundant and that she had not been reinstated.

Be like Nina has accumulated enough experience and strength to effectively offset the existing medical union sector and sometimes even the public employment service. The movement is open to all health professionals. The main condition expected of them is their willingness to fight for their rights.